IBM and Livermore Lab Extend Partnership on High Performance Computing

IBM and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have extended a long-running partnership in an effort to enhance America's competitiveness in high-performance computing (HPC).

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have announced an extension of their 20-year relationship that is expected to boost American competitiveness in high-performance computing.

Through a new agreement, IBM and LLNL have formed an HPC collaboration called Deep Computing Solutions to take place within LLNL's High Performance Computing Innovation Center (HPCIC). The HPCIC itself opened in June 2011. The center was created to help American industry harness the power of supercomputing to better compete in the global marketplace. Deep Computing Solutions will bring a new dimension to the HPCIC, adding IBM's computational science expertise to LLNL's own.

"The capabilities of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are uniquely suited to boost American industry's competitiveness in the global marketplace," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.) in a statement. "The new collaboration between the Lab and IBM is an excellent example of using the technical expertise of both the government and the private-sector to spur innovation and investment in the U.S. economy.

"The strength of supercomputing facilities like Livermore's High Performance Computing Innovation Center offers a broad range of solutions to energy, environmental and national security problems. I look forward to following the progress of this new collaboration in accelerating the development of products and services to maintain the nation s competitive advantage," she said.

Feinstein delivered remarks on the collaboration at a June 27 Capitol Hill briefing on "Big Data: The New Natural Resource." The focus of the briefing is how Congress and the Obama administration can harvest the great new resource of big data to address the nation's challenges.

Computer and domain science experts from IBM Research and LLNL will work together with a broad range of American industry collaborators to devise HPC solutions that can help accelerate the development of new technologies, products and services. Among areas of interest are applied energy; green energy, including renewable energy sources; biology; materials science; fabrication; manufacturing; data management; and informatics.